On Difficult Negotiations

One of the most paradoxical of human instincts is the urge to avoid the hard thing. Especially when there’s an emotional charge to it: an unpleasant conversation, a brewing conflict, an outcome you can’t quite see. It feels like if you just wait, it’ll all somehow sort itself out.

It won’t.

Most problems don’t vanish. They either get worse or — more dangerously — slip into the shadows, where they keep eating away at the business or the relationship from the inside, like a tumor. Problems like these go into a savings jar of “corners” we think we’ve cut for now — but the jar gets smashed one day all the same, and everything we stashed away scatters in every direction.

Solutions, oddly enough, rarely call for genius — only the willingness to step into the situation and sit with the discomfort.

My personal rule for setting priorities is simple: take on what no one else wants to or is able to solve. Out of fear, lack of skill, lack of authority, lack of social connections, lack of confidence in themselves — it doesn’t matter. I pick the most awkward, most tangled knots — and I start to unpick them: to say “no,” to defend someone’s honor, to give my word, to issue an ultimatum, to bring some charisma to the table, to take the hit, to apologize, to deliver bad news. Not because I “need it more than anyone,” but because in my own mind I simply have no choice once I’ve taken responsibility for the processes I set in motion. And that — that’s a tremendous place to grow!

This is, in part, what leadership is. Look at any hierarchy and you’ll find that the top is occupied by the people who consistently solve the psychologically hardest problems. The higher you go, the less right you have to avoid them. And anything a notch simpler is already a field for delegation and for developing the rest of the team. Otherwise the resources run out.

Yes, it’s inconvenient — physically, emotionally, logistically. I fly between regions, drive out to remote places, work through emotional overload. So what? If I see that a matter won’t get resolved without me there in person — I don’t ask myself questions and I don’t look for excuses. I just go, I meet, I solve it. This isn’t heroism — it’s routine. Sometimes I prepare thoroughly, and sometimes, as they say, the battle plan reveals itself in the fighting. But even if it didn’t work the first time — the process is already in motion.

Here’s to all of us finding the courage to take on the tasks everyone else writes off as “too tough to crack”! 😎